Eddie closed his work laptop just as the first drops of rain began to tap against the window. He leaned back in his chair, exhaling the day's weight, then reached for his phone. Without thinking much, he got up and headed to the restroom, the soft hum of the office settling behind him. As he was entering the restroom, he looked down in his smart phone and open the screen of his mobile phone. It shows a picture of two person.
A young man with short black hair and a playful pout stands on the left, wearing an olive-green long-sleeved shirt, a gray-strapped backpack, and a pendant necklace. Beside him is a young woman with long straight black hair, smiling warmly as she takes the mirror selfie. Dressed in a white top with tied details and a backpack on one shoulder, she holds his arm gently, giving the photo a light and affectionate vibe.
Eddie sighed and quickly checked the time before closing the phone screen.
"5:15 PM" he thought as his mobile phone screen went black, now reflecting his face.
He now has long, untrimmed hair falling around his face after a year without a haircut. His tired, stressed expression and heavy eyes replace his usual relaxed look. Still in his olive-green long-sleeved shirt, he appears worn and drained, leaning slightly forward as if weighed down by both physical and emotional fatigue.
He slipped his smartphone back into his pocket and went to relieve himself.
When he got out of the restroom and returned to his table to gather his things, he glanced at the glass window—watching streaks of rain chase each other down the pane.
"Another transmission line tripped!" one colleague, the transmission line dispatcher on duty, called out to another table beside him.
"Alright, I'll raise the loading of a power plant to stabilize the frequency. Don't worry, I got you, pre."
In the control room, there are three tables arranged in a row, each with its own workstation. Every workstation has three monitors, and each person seated at these tables also has their own work laptop. Behind the middle table is a larger one, equipped with two workstations, each with two monitors—plus another laptop for the person assigned there.
From left to right, the three front tables are designated for the Generation Dispatcher, the Transmission Line Dispatcher, and the Planners. Generation and Transmission Line Planners usually share the third table, but since the Transmission Line Planner is on leave, Eddie has the entire workspace to himself.
The table behind the middle station belongs to the Grid Dispatch Manager—the one who leads and oversees all the dispatchers.
In front of them, a massive video wall dominates the room, displaying the Power Grid and its live parameters. On the lower-left side of that video wall is a door leading to the office of the Planning Manager and the overall head of the Network Operations Division.
The soft hues from the video wall painted Eddie's tired face. Another eight-hour shift—hours spent juggling power forecasts, reports, studies, and endless analysis.
Eddie constantly kept an eye on Luzon's generation status through forecasts, simulations, and studies. His wrist ached from typing; his mind throbbed from the stream of numbers that never seemed to end.
"Good work, Engr. Cruz," the Grid Dispatch Manager said as he passed by, a hint of warmth in his tone. "Weekend na rin bukas. You deserve a rest."
Eddie managed a faint smile. "Yeah… rest."
But the word felt empty—like a promise he could never keep.
Good thing he had rented a condo unit just a short walk away from the office.
He tapped his ID on the scanner of the control room door. A single beep sounded, the lock clicked, and he pushed through.
He brings out his folding umbrella as he headed for the stairs—three floors down—since the elevator was still under maintenance. By the time he reached the ground floor, he was already rolling his shoulders to ease the stiffness.
Another large door greeted him, this one also equipped with an ID scanner. He tapped his card again, but it beeped twice—an error. He tried again. Two beeps. And again. Two beeps. After the fourth attempt, he exhaled sharply in annoyance and leaned closer to the alternate scanner.
"Tsk. I hate doing this—it feels weird. But it looks like I don't have a choice."
The panel switched modes, performing a retinal scan. It flashed green and beeped once.
He glanced at his ID card; the plastic casing was dusty and scratched.
"Looks like I need to replace this casing," he muttered as the door finally opened, letting him out.
"You're Cruz, right?" the security guard asked as he stepped through.
Eddie nodded with a tired smile. "Yeah—Eddie Cruz."
The guard logged his name as Eddie exited the System Operations section of the Power Corporation compound.
The compound is shared by the National Power Corporation (NPC), the National Transmission Corporation (NTC), and the National Grid Corporation (NGC).
NPC occupies one large building, while NTC shares the main building with NGC. System Operations, however, stands in its own fenced-off building—tightly secured and heavily guarded.
Eddie stepped out of the gates of the System Operations Section with his umbrella in his left hand. He made his way toward the back exit of the Power Corporation compound, the one that leads directly to the Eton Centris rotonda.
Walking along the road, he soon reached an intersection. The path behind him led back to System Operations. The road to his right headed toward the NPC building, Gate three of the compound, and the shared covered basketball court where employees played every Monday. The road straight ahead led to the sunken garden, where staff from NPC, NTC, and NGC parked their vehicles. Eddie turned left instead, following the ramp downward into another parking area. Few people parked here—the trees overhead were dense, and most were afraid that falling branches might scratch their cars.
After a few hundred meters, Eddie finally arrived at the back exit gate of the compound. Another security guard greeted him—this one didn't ask his name, already familiar with him.
"Hi, Engr. Cruz. How's your father doing?" Eddie's father had worked as an IT Technical Support staff for NGC since the day Eddie was born—twenty-seven years now.
"He's doing fine, sir. Still can't convince him to play with us on Mondays, though. Everyone's always looking for him," Eddie replied.
"Is that so? I'll be seeing you on Monday then?" the guard said with a grin.
Eddie smiled back, gave a small salute, and continued walking toward the Eton Centris rotonda.
The skies were growing darker—not just because night was approaching, but because the rain looked ready to pour even harder.
Though the walkway to Eton Centris already had scattered puddles, Eddie quickened his pace toward the mall. He cut through the entrance of Mr. DIY and out its mall-side exit, following the shortcut most people used when heading into Eton Centris.
Eddie went straight to the grocery store and picked up three seafood-flavored cup noodles and three cans of mackerel. He felt too tired to cook a proper meal, so instant food would have to do for tonight.
After paying, he headed to the second floor and exited through the Eton Centris mall entrance connected to the MRT station. He crossed to the other side of EDSA using the station's overpass, and just beyond it—right behind the McDonald's—stood his condo building.
As he stepped into the condo lobby, a security guard approached him.
"Sir, can we help you?"
The guard's tone made it obvious—he was assuming Eddie was an outsider, maybe even a vagrant. Eddie simply shook it off, pulled out his condo keys, and kept walking.
"Eighth floor, unit 8," he said, holding up the keys as he passed.
He stopped in front of the elevator and pressed the UP button.
The rain had grown heavier by the time he reached his condo unit, drumming steadily against the window. As Eddie stepped inside, he flicked the switch near the door—the fluorescent lights buzzed to life, illuminating a room that felt both familiar and strangely distant.
The unit was spacious enough for two people. By the entrance, an aesthetic shoe rack sat in front of the bathroom door on his right. Eddie slipped off his shoes but didn't bother placing them on the rack. Instead, he walked past the living area and the bedroom door, heading straight to the terrace facing the back of McDonald's. Another shoe rack stood there—this one meant for drying wet shoes and holding the pairs he used daily.
He opened his umbrella and propped it on the terrace to dry.
Returning to the living room, he placed his bag beside his gaming setup before moving to the dining area. He grabbed the electric kettle, filled it with water, and switched it on to boil.
Then he settled into his gaming chair and powered on his PC. Beside the monitor, a thin layer of dust coated the VR visor—untouched for a long time, yet waiting, almost calling to him.
He leaned back in his chair. The soft click-clack of his keyboard and the low hum of the air conditioner filled the room—steady, mechanical noises against the backdrop of a restless, rain-soaked night.
Call of Duty: VR — Neural Integration Beta (Legacy Compatible).
The notification had been sitting in Eddie's inbox for weeks, its bold subject line like a quiet dare he kept refusing—until tonight.
He hovered his cursor over it, rain tapping gently against the window. His faint reflection stared back from the dark monitor—long, untrimmed hair falling over a tired, stressed face; eyes weighed down by sleepless nights.
Erica would've laughed at me for hesitating, he thought, remembering the way she used to lean over his shoulder before late-night matches, her tone teasing but warm.
"You can track the weather faster than headshots, Engr. Cruz. Maybe you chose the wrong career."
He could almost hear her soft chuckle, feel the brush of her hair as she leaned in before diving into the VR world. That was before Singapore—before the NeuralGrid project took her away for a year.
Before the late replies… and eventually, her disappearance.
Eddie grabbed his smartphone and looked at his wallpaper again. Eddie felt a warmth in his chest, he checked the time. It says, 6:21 PM. With a smile in his face, he closed his smartphone and put it gently beside his monitor.
Eddie finally clicked on the email. The invitation pulsed faintly on the screen, syncing to his system as if it had been waiting for him all along.
He reached for the neural visor resting beside the monitor. Dust scattered as his fingers brushed across its surface. He hesitated—then smiled faintly, as though answering a ghost.
"Alright, Drumstickkk," he murmured, calling himself by the gamer tag he'd used for years. "Let's see if this old man still remembers how to play COD:VR."
He slipped on the visor. A soft chime echoed in his ears, followed by the familiar vibration of the neural sync initializing. The world around him dissolved into a wash of light and static, reality melting into pixels and memory.
The last thing he saw before everything blurred… was the rain outside—falling harder, as if the world itself refused to let him go.
[ INITIALIZING NEURAL SYNC… ]
[ WELCOME, DRUSMTICKKK. ]
[ LEGACY ACCOUNT DETECTED. RANK: UNRANKED (RETIRED SINCE SEASON 12) ]
[ DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?]
[ LOG OFF ]
[ PROCEED ]
He almost laughed. Retired.
Even the system hadn't forgotten what he was trying to.
[ PROCEED ]
The void bled into form.
Lines of code unraveled like threads of light, weaving themselves into streets, buildings, and clouds. The city materialized around Eddie. He found himself standing in front of the Eton Centris mall—the same place he had last logged out. COD:VR always spawned players at their previous location, and in this parallel digital version of the real world, Centris looked both familiar and strangely enhanced.
A drizzle of light rain fell from a pixel sky, refracting colors from the towering holo-billboards above. Vendor stalls flickered in and out of sync—AI shopkeepers looping their idle animations as they tried to sell energy drinks to passing players.
The place used to buzz louder back then. Before tournaments. Before dungeon runs. Before everything changed. Players once filled the plaza—warming up, trading hints, trash-talking each other, laughing. And somewhere in that chaos, Erica's voice would slip through soft, sharp, crackling like static.
Now only NPCs occupied the corners, and the players nearby were faces Eddie didn't recognize.
He started running toward the Power Corporation Compound. Puddles rippled beneath his boots with each step. On a massive holo-screen mounted on the mall façade, a live match blazed across the display. The shoutcaster's voice echoed:
"Insane reflexes! Neural enhancements coming in clutch! Auto-corrected recoil—this is next-gen mastery!"
Eddie slowed, watching the match for a second. Even the guns looked different. Sleeker. Smarter. More advanced than anything he remembered.
"Everything's changed," he muttered. "Except me."
Eddie adjusted his gear strap—a practiced, grounding motion. The synthetic leather flexed just like the real thing, a tactile illusion convincing enough to fool the nerves. He continued running toward what would be the back entrance of the Power Corporation Compound in the real world, but here in COD:VR, it was Neo Manila's Training Compound.
In the real world, the Sunken Garden served as a parking area.
In the VR world, that same location had transformed into the Tactical Zone—a sprawling field where players practiced their movement, aim drills, and live-fire combat simulations.
Wind carried the faint static of neglected sound files—half-loaded gunfire loops, wind FX cutting out mid-gust. Sand crunched beneath his boots as he stepped inside, the echo ringing like he'd disturbed a memory best left sleeping.
A few players trained in the far lanes—bare silhouettes—each too absorbed in their grind to notice the lone veteran in black armor.
His armor.
Matte plates scarred and dented. A darkened visor. A chest plate etched with the faint marks of old battles.
For a moment, Drumstickkk reached up and unlatched his helmet.
The visor lifted, revealing a face that matched his own from a year ago in the real world—sharp, youthful features framed by neat black hair, a calm composure beneath eyes that carried the faint shadows of countless late nights spent coding, playing, or thinking too much. His expression was reserved, but there was a gentleness in his gaze, a warmth that didn't quite belong to a soldier.
This was their design—his and Erica's. She had insisted the avatar look exactly like him.
"If we're going to dive into the game," she once said with a teasing grin, "at least let me see the man I fell for."
He remembered that night perfectly—the soft glow of her monitor, her laughter as she tweaked the facial mesh and symmetry sliders, the way she leaned over his shoulder to fix a strand of digital hair that refused to sit right.
Now, seeing that face reflected on the dark window of a training-zone vehicle, it felt like seeing a memory resurrected.
Eddie exhaled.
"Still the same old face, Erica," he murmured, recalling how different he looked now in the real world. "Guess some things don't need updates."
He knelt and opened his interface. The familiar HUD blinked to life in front of him.
[ MP MODE LOADOUT ]
[ PRIMARY WEAPON : M4 – BLACK GOLD ROYAL ]
[ Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, OWC Ranger, Red Dot, Underbarrel Launcher, 50-Round Extended Mag ]
[ SECONDARY WEAPON : COMBAT KNIFE ]
[ LETHAL EQUIPMENT : FRAG GRENADE ]
[ TACTICAL EQUIPMENT : GAS GRENADE ]
[ PERKS EQUIPPED: RESTOCK, SKULKER, HARDWIRED, DEAD SILENCE]
He swiped from right to left. The HUD shifted.
[ OPEN WORLD LOADOUT ]
[ PRIMARY WEAPON : M4 – BLACK GOLD ROYAL ]
[ Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, OWC Ranger, Red Dot, Underbarrel Launcher, 50-Round Extended Mag ]
[ SECONDARY WEAPON : COMBAT KNIFE ]
[ HELMENT : BALLISTIC SHELL (MATTE) ]
[ Durability: 88%]
[ ARMOR : TITANIUM-FLEX CHEST RIG (MATTE) ]
[ Durability: 73%]
[ ARMS : STEELCLAD GAUNTLET (MATTE) ]
[ Durability: 68%]
[ LEGS : OPERATOR COMBAT GREAVES (MATTE) ]
[ Durability: 53%]
[ ACCESSORY : NONE ]
[ Durability: NONE ]
"Woah… they added accessories now?" Drumstickkk muttered, swiping right to left again.
[ COMBAT PREFENCE ]
[ Neural Aim Assists : Off ]
[ Skill Auto lock on : Off ]
[ Neural Recoil Stabilization Assist: Off ]
[ Spray Tracking Assists: Off ]
"Seems like they've perfected this system these days. But I'll keep everything off. I trust my instincts more than the VR system assists."
He ignored the flickering prompts offering neural aids. No stabilization. No auto-tracking. No comfort.
Only him.
The rifle felt heavier than he remembered.
Drumstickkk stood in the shooting range, testing whether his hands still knew what to do. The first burst scattered wildly across the rusted crates, recoil slamming into his shoulder—a sharp reminder of how much time had passed. He steadied his breath.
Tap. Burst. Breathe. Drag down. Reset.
By the tenth magazine, his shots were landing close to the center.
By the twentieth, his body remembered the rhythm long before his mind caught up.
For old time's sake, he toggled the underbarrel launcher.
The grenade arced through the air, trailing blue sparks before blooming into a muted orange explosion. The blast washed the range in light, flickering along the edges of the virtual horizon.
Eddie grinned.
"Still got it."
He lowered the rifle and tilted his head upward. The night sky of Neo Manila shimmered above him, and rain fell pixel by pixel, each drop landing on his avatar's face with near-perfect realism.
For a moment, beneath the hum of the VR world and the echo of memory, he felt her there—Erica's voice, the faint warmth that neither time nor code could erase.
Drumstickkk opened his HUD and queued for a match.
[ Ranked. MP Mode (Solo). Deathmatch. 10 Kills. ]
[ Searching for opponent… ]
[ Match found. ]
[ Opponent: Jin (Tier 4) ]
Eddie's lips curled into a small, knowing grin.
The screen flashed white as the world reassembled around him. Buildings snapped into place, sunlight washed over cracked pavement, and familiar alleyways stretched out like old memories waiting to be relived.
He recognized the map instantly—but before he could name it, the HUD spoke for him.
[ Crossfire — Daytime ]
[ System announcement : The system had randomly selected this game to be live streamed across Neo Manila ]
"Hah! I just came back and the system already wants to put pressure on me," Drumstickkk muttered as dust motes drifted through the sunlight bleeding from the cracked skybox. The familiar streets stretched before him—warped textures, chipped walls, all rendered sharper than his memory of them.
Abandoned cars still leaned against curbs in the same crooked angles. The sniper balcony towered above like an old monument, its pillars scarred with bullet holes from duels long past.
Everything looked the same, and yet… time seemed to hum beneath the surface, like a forgotten song replayed in higher fidelity.
Eddie loaded his rifle.
Click—metal on metal.
The sound alone steadied him.
He checked his lethal and tactical equipment just as the match countdown flickered into view.
[ Match starts in 5… 4… 3… ]
"First match after a year, and it's livestreamed?" Drumstickkk sighed, shaking his head. Win or lose, he was retired anyway.
But he squared his shoulders, gripping his rifle.
"I may be retired… but I don't plan on losing."
[ Match starts in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… ]
[ Match Start! ]
He moved through the narrow streets—cautious, silent. His boots pressed against fractured pavement, each step echoing faint memories. Every corner told a story he already knew. Every shadow reminded him of a time when this map was alive with voices, laughter, and rivalries that felt eternal.
A voice crackled through proximity chat—young, confident, wrapped in synth distortion.
"Yo… you're using the M4 Black Gold Royal? What is this, Season 12?"
Eddie said nothing. He adjusted his aim, checked the minimap, and let instinct take over.
If the kid saw his weapon, he was likely a sniper. And if the sniper had eyes on him, the system would've auto-tagged a red blip on Eddie's map. But nothing appeared. No ping. No trace.
Which meant only one thing: the kid was hiding in one of the map's blind shadows, spots that even the minimap couldn't track.
And Eddie knew exactly where those spots were.
"Old man, that meta's dead," the kid scoffed. "You can't even install a neural sync module on that relic. Neural-supported guns wipe that setup easy."
The tone had the sharp arrogance of someone who'd never tasted defeat without an algorithm to soften the blow. Eddie smirked—just a faint curl of the lip born from years of real play, real muscle memory, long before neural coders even existed.
Footsteps. Left alley.
He exhaled—slow, measured.
One beat.
Two.
Move.
He strafed out, sighted, and fired a single round.
The rifle cracked through the still air.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
The kill feed pulsed crimson.
Exactly where he expected. Exactly the sniper spot he knew by heart.
A pause. Then disbelief flooded the voice chat.
"No way… did you install a neural sync module on that thing? I thought old-meta weapons can't handle that upgrade!"
Eddie ejected the magazine, letting the empty casing clatter across the concrete.
"Nah," he said, voice calm as steel. "I prefer the old meta, young blood."
A sharp clang hit the wall beside him—a missed shot.
Jin had already respawned.
Sunlight glared off shattered glass, scattering shifting reflections across the street. Jin rushed forward—his movements unnaturally smooth, every pivot and slide sharpened by neural calibration. The system predicted his recoil, optimized his breathing, and bent milliseconds to his will.
Eddie, in contrast, moved with deliberate imperfection—every step chosen, every pause intentional. He read the angles. He listened to the wind.
Old instincts stirred beneath the surface.
Jin fired first—three bursts, all wide. Eddie ducked behind a rusted truck, slid right, popped up, and answered with a single shot ricocheting through the side mirror.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
There is time when Jin's system assisted style have managed to eliminate Drumstickkk. But thanks to these deaths, Drumstickkk was able to understand how the system assisted combat works and how to counter it.
By the sixth spawn of Jin, it was no longer just a game. It was a battle between eras—neural precision versus human intuition. The rookie relied on systems; Eddie trusted the rhythm of his pulse.
Jin wall-jumped, slide-canceled, fired a volley. Eddie broke line of sight baited a reload click and punished it with a clean tap to the visor.
[Drumstickkk > Jin]
By round ten, the match had lost its tension—only clarity remained.
No theatrics. No commentary. Just skill.
[ Victory: Drumstickkk — 10 / 6. ]
Silence followed.
Then a voice, small and unsteady.
"Who… are you?"
Eddie let the question hang in the static.
He slung his rifle, gazed up at the virtual sun flickering through the code-thinned sky, and smiled faintly.
"Just someone who remembers how it used to be."
The match results burned on Jin's memory. He already logged off but it still flashes in his head.
[ Defeat: 6 – 10. ]
[ Opponent: Drumstickkk (Untiered) ]
For a moment, Jin just sat there—heartbeat thudding in his ears.
How?
He had never lost a ranked duel since joining Owl Esports PH.
"I'm the undefeated Rookie! How did this happen?!"
He tore off his VR visor, the foam padding dragging against sweat-damp hair. The sterile light of the training room hit him like a slap—white, harsh, cold.
Rows of VR pods lined the room in perfect symmetry, each one glowing a faint blue. Most were empty now, the rest housed teammates deep in sim drills. The hum of ventilation filled the silence, broken only by the steady beeping of performance monitors.
Jin straightened, gripping the visor with both hands.
His reflection stared back from its curved surface—young, confident… and shaken.
That guy, Drumstickkk—he moved differently. No neural assist. No predictive AI. Just raw control and instinct.
"Old meta my ass…" Jin muttered, slamming the visor onto the desk.
New season protocols allowed players to inspect an opponent's VR setup and loadout after a match. Jin pulled up the info screen.
[ Profile: Drumstickkk (Untiered) ]
[ Class: Legacy Operator. ]
[ Primary Weapon: M4 - Black Gold Royal ]
Jin frowned. "Legacy Operator? I got defeated by a no class operator?"
Meanwhile, Eddie logged out from the game.
The world dissolved back into the quiet of his room and the rain tapped gently against the real window—steady, grounding.
But before he could remove the visor, the notification HUD back in the VR world flashed back.
A small notification blinked beneath the victory screen.
[ Partner Detected: Meihua. ]
[ Status: Offline… Data Activity Detected in Singapore Core Grid. ]
Eddie was just sitting there in his gaming chair. Remembering the notification he got before logging off.
He leaned back in his chair, breath unsteady, heart suddenly alive with something he hadn't felt in years.
"Erica…?" he whispered.
Outside, thunder rolled across EDSA's sky.
And for the first time in a long while—Eddie didn't feel tired.
He felt awake.